Problem with Linux, is if you have to use Microsoft Office/services for business then you are a bit stuck. If you run it in virtual mode then essentially you are running it in windows and/or a web based application. I recently upgraded to Windows 11 and Office 2021 because I needed SharePoint for collaborating with companies, at the end of the day it was more complicated.
Sure - there were folks at the meetings with the Windows laptops, looking in surprise at the teleconference big screen, and discovering that hardball engineers at the meeting were running Linux. Cheekily, some were running Windows (7) in a window within Linux, using VirtualBox, which is
not an emulator.
Our work was about satellite tracking. The imperative was to keep the computers in sync to clock within 300uS. The computers were expected to run without any re-boot for several years. This included installing and crossing onto updated software without missing a beat. It was easier to stop the app for a (scheduled) few seconds, but no re-boot. It was not enough to be able to have servos point at a moving satellite within 0.05° degrees. That had to happen at a particular exact celestial time, allowing for speed-of-light delays, relativistic effects, doppler frequency shifts, and more.
There was no way one could entrust this to a Windows computer that would randomly use up already allocated computer micro-cycles doing mysterious internal processes in software layers known only to itself. Windows, as an OS, is like a very big app collecting meta-data. That's its main job. The programs it runs for the user are the quid-pro-quo. The "deal". I have never liked nor agreed to it.
I also have significant privacy with the default Microsoft settings and the default is to put everything in their cloud. You need to carefully go through all the settings and turn a lot of data streams off.
This arcane process is made so complicated that the majority of users don't manage this. BUT, when they do, various apps have legalese buried in their user agreements to simply turn them on again as needed. Also, just because you switched the setting off, does not mean that it actually complied. This is an issue of trust!
Telemetry - and "the cloud"
The "enforced update". I know that even a very capable high power OS can be installed in about 10-15 minutes . There is no good reason that huge amounts of bytes ever need to be uploaded to MicroSoft as part of the process. All you need is the download.
The other thing to think about is that in order for Windows 11 to install you need to be running TPM 2.0, a relatively new chip for a more secure environment, so computers more than a few years old may not be up gradable. It also locks the software to that motherboard, if you replace your motherboard and try to reinstall from a back-up my understanding is it will not work. It also will not work with older disk formatting structures so you need to convert FAT32 to NTFS. Lost all the data on a hard drive with one of those conversion programs.
Ahh - the "lock-in"
Touted as "more secure", this is rubbish. One can always force to boot the computer from an external storage, and install whatever OS you like. MicroSoft may have so bullied the chip suppliers to make it complicated to bypass, but MicroSoft can never have it that all new computers can only ever run Windows without running into a severe anti-trust competition issue. MicroSoft have always made version formats incompatible, even with itself.
I took a bit of a deep breath at the time, but my solution was to forcibly overwrite the hard drive. Linux can read FAT32, and NTFS, and run programs in them. It turns out that there is not a single worldly computing task or function that cannot be done without Windows, and in my experience, always easier, and better.
When I buy PCs the vendors are startled when I ask for the price without any drives in them, or empty drives, regardless of so-called "secure-boot". I expect not to pay for the Windows, or it's no deal! How not to experience the irks of Windows, is to walk away entirely.
There are some brilliant, well written Windows programs. I cite for example "
Excel". It's a mature application. There are not many more bells and whistles that could be added that users would need. I bet most folk don't even use all the features that are already there! They probably would not put up with an update that popped up advertisements. I use "
Libre-Office". It does the same thing, and I can export Microsoft Format spreadsheets to those folk who have Windows.
American users seem far more wedded to Windows OS than European users, but I don't know how deep this goes.
